How configurable is hardware firewall?

[Two Cents]

I want to get a router with hardware firewall. Is it as configurable as, say, Norton Software firewall? Norton keeps blocking my peer-to-peer connections, even when I configure it to always allow a certain IP. I have to disable Norton and reboot the other computers to re-establish the internet connection sharing. Thanks.

[bachviet]

Why use Norton Security when you could use the friendlier ZoneAlarm Pro??? ANyway I have the SMC7004ABR router and it has both firewall and print server capability! I setup the firewall but I don't know if you could tweak it much!

[Jeffbx]

In most cases, no, a firewall/router combo is not as configurable as a software firewall. This is because the 'firewall' included is usually just NAT - network address translation. This means that it will hide your IP address by assigning a fake address to any PC behind the router. This is not a very secure firewall in that it does not actively monitor incoming connections for malicious code - it merely blocks most traffic.

A 'true' hardware firewall, such as a Watchguard or Cisco PIX, is easily as configurable, and in some cases, more configurable than a software firewall. It's also much faster, since it relies on its own internal processor to watch the traffic. Of course, they're also more expensive and can be quite difficult to set up properly.

[Two Cents]

Thanks, guys, guess I won't be deleting Norton. Zonealarm just has too many people who report a recurring problem...screws your computer when you uninstall it.

[aglio412]

i haven't had any problems with zonealarm...quite nice if you ask me...although i have a somewhat related question. i'm thinking about buying a sub $100 router/firewall (linksys, dlink, or something) and i was wondering how easy it is to have a webserver behind it. i'm assuming they use dhcp to assign IPs, but is it simple to point them to a particular machine on your network for port 80 traffic to the main IP?

i have a linux box with 2 nics doing the job now, but i've had some trouble with it, and i'm thinking about making it a stand alone oracle box anyway...so i think i may just grab a cheapy router/firewall...